


Anakhronismós

by manic_intent



Series: Polemos [4]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Deimos!Alexios - Freeform, M/M, That AU post Amphipolis where Brasidas is asked to help hunt down the Cult
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:08:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23148250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: Someone approached Brasidas’ back on silent feet, his mouth pulling into a predatory gash as Brasidas pretended not to see him. Deimos didn’t go for the blade at his hip—the sound of him drawing it would’ve been a giveaway—he chopped at Brasidas’ bared throat with the edge of his palm. Brasidas jerked aside, the hand glancing off his shoulder plate, only for Deimos to jam his fingers between the breastplate and Brasidas’ collarbone, hauling him close with only a faint grunt of effort.“What kind of move is that?” Brasidas chided, tapping at Deimos’ ankle with the flat of his spear. “You leave yourself open. I could’ve stabbed you with my spear.”
Relationships: Alexios/Brasidas (Assassin's Creed)
Series: Polemos [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1253138
Comments: 10
Kudos: 171
Collections: Fandom Trumps Hate 2020





	Anakhronismós

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moratorium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moratorium/gifts).



> FTH2020 prompt by @moratorium, who asked for a continuation to my Polemos series. I finished Polemos at Amphipolis because it’s the end of Brasidas’ arc (he died there IRL too), but I did spend a lot of time in AC Odyssey after the Amphipolis arc faffing around doing random things, like the Atlantis stuff and chasing down every cultist, so this fic is from my vague memories of those. 
> 
> **SPOILERS FOR AC:O ENDGAME**  
>  When you finish the game, your entire surviving family (depends on your life choices) can join you on your ship, which is kinda hilarious.

The Adrestia docked under a crown of looming clouds, slung low over a ruin of wood and stone. Brasidas walked a couple of slow circuits through the ruins. Other than Deimos and Kassandra, none of the others from the Adrestia had been willing to disembark even for a walk, trading unsettled glances as they docked. Even the ship’s captain, a garrulous old man named Barnabas, had fallen silent once Thera had come within view. 

Deeper into the ruins stood a massive stone door, rectangular and alien in form. Brasidas tried to ignore it, instead studying one of the large mirrors that dotted the ruins. Its bronze cradle was oddly unblemished despite that sense of age that bled off the device, and the mirror threw back Brasidas’ image as clearly as a limpid pool when he stepped in front of it. Brasidas smiled ruefully, tugging at his greying beard. The man he saw in the mirror looked weather-worn. Old. His Spartan breastplate, shield, and spear were burnished bright, but the leather strips and belts needed replacing. 

Someone approached Brasidas’ back on silent feet, his mouth pulling into a predatory gash as Brasidas pretended not to see him. Deimos didn’t go for the blade at his hip—the sound of him drawing it would’ve been a giveaway—he chopped at Brasidas’ bared throat with the edge of his palm. Brasidas jerked aside, the hand glancing off his shoulder plate, only for Deimos to jam his fingers between the breastplate and Brasidas’ collarbone, hauling him close with only a faint grunt of effort. 

“What kind of move is that?” Brasidas chided, tapping at Deimos’ ankle with the flat of his spear. “You leave yourself open. I could’ve stabbed you with my spear.” 

Deimos did not smile as people did. He smiled like a lion, baring hunger and teeth; his smile did little to soften his savagely handsome face, beautiful even under several days’ worth of dirt and stubble. He did not wear his hair in Spartan fashion: it fell heavy against his cheeks and shoulders in braids, knotted against beads. Neither was his armour of Spartan make. Gold greaves and a breastplate were buckled over silver-tanned leather, intricately embossed—spoils of war from a new war. 

“If I’d wanted a real fight,” Deimos said, “I would’ve thrown my spear at forty paces.” 

“Only forty?” Brasidas chuckled as Deimos growled and nuzzled his throat, nipping him against the line of his beard. Brasidas stepped clear, slapping Deimos on the arm. “Where’s your sister?” 

“On the way back to the ship.” Deimos gestured to their left, where a figure in Spartan armour was picking her deft way back to the red-sailed Adrestia. “She said that if we take too long, she’ll weigh anchor without us. Bitch.” 

“Don’t say that about your sister,” Brasidas said. It was a daily rebuke by now, one that Deimos ignored. “Did you see what you were here to see?”

Deimos sniffed. “You could’ve come in with us. There was nothing much. A lot of rocks, mainly. And a very old man who should be dead. I was tempted to put him out of his misery, but Kassandra got upset.” 

“An old man?” Brasidas said, puzzled. They’d sailed to this remote ruin to visit a hermit? 

“Her father. He’s somehow convinced Kassandra that he’s several hundred years old. As though that’s possible. I didn’t think that my sister was so gullible.” Deimos spat to a side, heading for the stairs. “Let’s go. This island stinks, and there’s nothing to eat, fight, or drink.” 

Bemused, Brasidas followed. Both Deimos and Kassandra looked to be in a sour mood as the ship weighed anchor and rowed out of the channel that fed into the docks of Thera. They didn’t go far—Kassandra directed the Adrestia to follow the shoreline east. Where the shallows gave way to the deep blue sea, scraps of seaweed and old earthenware pots bobbed slowly on the surface.

“What are we looking for now?” Brasidas said as Kassandra gave the order to lower the anchor, her eagle circling in a lazy spiral far above them. 

“A shipwreck with clues that might lead me to another one of the so-called Gods of the Aegean Sea.” Kassandra curled her lip at the mention of the naval branch of the Cult of Kosmos. 

“That’s more like it,” Deimos growled. “I thought you sailed out here to waste our time.” 

“You saw the vault, and you say it was a waste of time?” Kassandra said, incredulous. “Didn’t you see the—” She caught herself, glancing at Brasidas. 

“Sunken ruins, lots of fish,” Deimos said. “The Aegean is full of ruins. So now what? We sail around Thera looking for yet another ruin? Great plan. That might take us months. We could subsist on fish and the fruits of your stupidity.”

Kassandra muttered darkly under her breath, clenching and unclenching her fists. “If you don’t want to help, stay on the ship.” She stalked away from the helm. 

“If it’s a new wreck, there should be more debris about. If it isn’t, those boxes should’ve been waterlogged by now. Or washed ashore,” Deimos said, scowling. “The right spot can’t be so conveniently marked. It’s either nothing or a trap.” 

Brasidas glanced over the side of the ship, noting the tell-tale knife-like shadows in the depths. “I see sharks.”

“Good. My sister will get the workout she deserves.”

“You should help her.” 

“What for? Maybe if she gets bitten a few times, we’d stop sailing in circles in the middle of nowhere.” 

Brasidas leaned his elbows against the rail of the ship. “If you don’t dive in after her, I will.” He inclined his head as Deimos shot him a furious stare.

#

Kos was currently under Athenian control. Brasidas left his black and red shield aboard the Adrestia and borrowed an unremarkable shield from its armoury. As he prepared to disembark at the port of Astypalia City with the other sailors, Kassandra said, “Are you sure about this?”

“About what?” Brasidas asked. 

“You’re _only_ one of the most famous Spartans in the world,” Kassandra said, studying Brasidas with a critical eye. “You should at least change your hair if you don’t want to change your armour.”

“My armour’s hardly standard issue, and you’re the first person to remark on my hair,” Brasidas said, amused. “Don’t worry. I’ve been in and out of Athenian territories quietly since you were a child.” 

“If there’s trouble, I’ll take care of it,” Deimos said, shouldering in between them. 

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Kassandra stared her brother down. “We’re here to rest and resupply before taking on the Mytilenian Shark. I don’t want to get embroiled in any local skirmishes.”

“I understand priorities,” Brasidas said, placing a calming hand on Deimos’ arm as Deimos bristled. “The ephors instructed me to assist you with your hunt for the Cult of Kosmos. I don’t intend to instigate any unrelated conflicts.” 

“See that you don’t,” Kassandra said, looking pointedly at Deimos instead of Brasidas. “Return to the ship before the morning tide in two days. If you’re late, I’ll leave you behind.”

As Kassandra strode off the ship, Deimos muttered, “Bitch.” 

“She knows you well,” Brasidas said, making no effort to hide his amusement as he walked off the ship at a more leisurely pace.

Deimos kept pace right behind him, guarding his back. “I wouldn’t mind a fight. I’m bored.”

“I could do with a workout if we can find somewhere quiet.” Brasidas swept Astypalia with a critical eye. The citizenry paid them little heed, save for shopkeepers in the marketplace near the docks, gesturing at their wares and waving. It was a tidy city of white stone and modest gardens. Sailors from a pair of other ships docked close by mingled easily with the locals. The Athenians had posted a roving patrol and nothing more.

“Lax,” Deimos said, watching the Athenian patrol stroll down the street. “It’d be so easy to give you this island.”

“What would I do with an island?” Brasidas strolled over to the local blacksmith, inspecting the armour on display. Well-made, but not as fine as his set—or Deimos’. 

“Retire?” Deimos said, and smirked as Brasidas glanced at him. “Surely it’s time.” 

Brasidas nodded at the blacksmith and picked another store at random, inspecting the amphoras. After he finished a slow circuit of the market, Brasidas made his way out of the city at a leisurely walk. “No watchers,” Deimos said in a low voice. “Kassandra’s somewhere close by, though. I see that eagle of hers circling to the west.” 

“Good,” Brasidas said as they followed the road out of the city. He’d noticed this himself. “You would’ve done well in Sparta, had you bothered to—”

“This again?” 

“Could you take over all of Kos single-handedly?” 

Deimos made a show of looking around. “Probably, given the time. Why? Do you want it after all?” 

“The sheer fact that you can do that just as you are… I don’t know any Spartans who could do what you do. It’s a waste. The ephors believe you were overindulged as a child.” 

“Why should I care how they think? Besides, if I weren’t ‘overindulged’, I’d have run away from Sparta after you taught me how to hunt and sail.” Deimos slapped Brasidas on the back, shifting him forward a step. “Either way, I wouldn’t be ‘liberating’ islands in their name.” 

“At least you didn’t refuse Spartan citizenship when it was offered to you.” 

“Why should I? Having it makes it easier to follow you around. Don’t start lecturing me about the so-called responsibilities of a Spartan citizen. Kassandra can continue the Agiad bloodline if she likes, though I doubt she’d be willing to give Sparta the child.” 

Brasidas shook his head, falling silent. They walked in silence, bypassing Asklepios Temple and into the woods, until they emerged onto the white beaches on the opposite side of the island. Graceful hinds leapt out of their way, springing into the trees behind a buck that watched them in twitchy silence. Distant islands broke against the thin line of the far horizon. Brasidas looked around, assuring himself that they were alone before he unclasped his shield from his back and shifted his grip on his spear. 

Deimos struck. His fingers closed tight over Brasidas’ wrist, his arm hooking against Brasidas’ shield arm, twisting him back and flush against Deimos’ chest. Deimos laughed as Brasidas grunted and tried to twist free, a low, coughing huff, a hunting-sound. “And you’ve lost,” Deimos said, leaning in to press a kiss over the nape of Brasidas’ neck. 

“Don’t be so sure.” Brasidas reversed his spear, stabbing at Deimos’ ankle. Deimos jerked out of the way, grinning, drawing his sword and spinning it in a playful flourish. Was anyone Deimos’ equal on the battlefield save for his sister? Even sparring with Deimos oft felt like a cat and mouse game, with Deimos playfully batting away every line of attack that Brasidas could think of.

When Deimos tired of the game, he made it known with an abrupt sharpening of focus. Brasidas knew the signs. Deimos’ grin wouldn’t slip, even as he lunged, the superb weapon that was his body loosed like a well-thrown spear. It was always over quickly at this point, no matter what Brasidas tried. Brasidas landed on his back on the sand with a huff, Deimos straddling his waist, sword buried in the ground next to Brasidas’ face. 

“Showy,” Brasidas said, slapping Deimos’ flank. “On a battlefield—”

“This isn’t a battlefield,” Deimos said. He bent closer, only to freeze and jump to his feet, plucking his sword from the sand and putting himself between Brasidas and the tree line. Brasidas pushed himself to his feet, scanning the trees.

There. A man in blue-draped bronze armour, bow in hand, his face partly obscured by a horsetail helm. An Athenian soldier—a polemarch, if Brasidas had to guess. That meant he wasn’t alone. Brasidas raised his shield and readied his spear, wary of arrows. 

“You’re good,” the polemarch said to Deimos with an appraising look. 

Deimos smirked, shifting his weight, still spoiling for a fight. “Want to find out how good? I’ll take you all on.” 

Brasidas set a hand on Deimos’ arm. “Can we help you?” he asked politely, masking his native Spartan accent. 

“Interesting. You speak like a Spartan, but don’t fight like one.” The polemarch nodded at Deimos and glanced at Brasidas. “While you fight like a Spartan, but don’t speak like one.” 

Deimos tensed, but didn’t move when Brasidas kept his hand where it was. “People tend to pick up all sorts of bad habits in arenas,” Brasidas said with a polite smile. 

“Both of you are misthios by trade?” asked the polemarch. 

Brasidas nodded. “You may have seen our ship docking at the harbour not so long ago. Our captain would be interested in any work you could spare. She’s likely still in Astypalia City.”

The polemarch sniffed. “A woman is your Captain? You I might understand, but you—why would you serve a woman? You’re the best warrior I’ve ever seen,” he told Deimos. 

“She’s his sister,” Brasidas said, before Deimos could say something unfortunate. 

“Still,” said the polemarch, frowning. 

“She’s a better warrior than you are,” Deimos growled. “Are we fighting or not? I’m getting hungry.” 

The polemarch stared at Deimos for a long moment, then averted his eyes and made a show of indifference. “Still in Astypalia, you say,” he told Brasidas. 

Brasidas nodded. “Tall woman in armour with braided hair and an eagle.” 

“Oh, the eagle-bearer! Well, why didn’t you say so?” The polemarch brightened up. “I’ll speak to her right away.” He gestured at his men, and they turned around to pick their way back through the trees.

“I hate people,” Deimos said once they were alone on the beach. “You should’ve let me kill them.” 

“That’s rather a lot of bodies to hide.” 

“There are lots of sharks in the water, speaking from personal experience. Another round?”

Brasidas shook his head. “We’re too exposed out here. We should keep moving.”

#

Smugglers had prepared, then abandoned a cave system with an underground spring. Given the old bones in the grass, picked clean by scavengers, and the scrapes on the walls, Brasidas could guess what happened. The smugglers left mouldering crates behind, their supplies long rotted. The air was damp, musky with the scent of soil, decay, and the stink from their armour and skin.

“You don’t bathe like a Spartan,” Deimos said, mimicking the polemarch’s gruff tone as Brasidas stripped down to his loincloth and waded knee-deep into the cold water.

“It’s training,” Brasidas said, eyeing the flickering fish that lay near the bottom of the stream. The cold water felt delicious against his aching leg. Old injuries liked to make their presence known at unpredictable intervals.

“If so, why did you leave your spear with your armour?” Deimos stripped down with unselfconscious grace, stacking his armour close to Brasidas’. He picked up Brasidas’ spear, padding over to the edge of the stream. Studying the water, Deimos struck so quickly that the spear appeared to vanish briefly from his hands. Deimos flicked a large pale fish onto the stone and offered the spear to Brasidas in a playful flourish. 

Brasidas ignored Deimos, sinking into the water to his shoulders. The chill ate into his bones, numbing the pain as he ducked his head into the stream. Cradled in the chill, Brasidas reached for clarity. Life felt unmoored since Amphipolis, as though he’d broken free from the Fates, his life thread spooling away from Clotho’s fingers, twisting free from Lachesis and Atropos. 

Fingers closed tight over his shoulder and hauled his head out of the chill. Deimos knelt in the water before him, searching Brasidas’ face. “Your leg,” he concluded. 

“What about it?”

Deimos shook his head. He looked unaffected from the chill; his eyes fixed on Brasidas. “There’s a school of medicine close by. We could talk to one of the doctors.” 

“There’s no cure for age, boy,” Brasidas said, rubbing his back as he got to his feet. He started to pick up his gear.

“Sit down,” Deimos said, rising from the stream. He cleaned their gear in the stream, then built a fire and roasted the fish close to the entrance of the cave after catching a couple more, scaling and cleaning them efficiently. Bland fare. Brasidas sat on a rock in his drying clothes with his portion, eating slowly. 

Deimos sat beside him. Unlike Brasidas, Deimos’ back was mostly unmarred. There were a few faint scars, nothing like the pale network that covered the back of any male Spartan warrior. Deimos looked over, following his gaze. “My sister asked,” Deimos said.

“About?”

“The lack of scars. She was having a maudlin day—we’d been trying to ferret out Skylax and hadn't been having much success.” The muscles on Deimos’ back rippled as he stretched. “You shouldn’t have made me go with her, by the way. She could’ve handled it herself. Not to mention she spent the whole trip convinced that you were going to go behind her back and warn him.”

“A logical conclusion.” Skylax was one of Sparta’s Generals, recruited by King Pausanias himself.

“She trusts me but not you. How is that logical?” 

“I’m loyal to Sparta. You aren’t. Besides, you’re her blood.” 

“Blood is nothing. My father is my blood. He still gave me to a priest to throw off a cliff. I don’t trust blood.” Deimos ran a hand down the faint scars on Brasidas’ back. “I don’t trust Sparta.” 

“You and your heresies,” Brasidas said, amused, but the anger in Deimos’ eyes didn’t fade. 

“This is from the Flagellation, isn’t it? When they lash all the boys at the altar of Artemis Orthia to the point of death. Just to see who faints last.” 

“A competition of endurance.” Brasidas had tried his best, but he hadn’t come close to winning. Not with Pallas in his year, already bullishly strong, bellowing with laughter with each strike. “You didn’t show up to yours.” 

“What for?” Deimos said, kissing a scar against Brasidas’ shoulder. “I have nothing to prove. Not to Sparta, not to the Gods. Only you, but you know what I can do. Besides, Pallas smoothed things down.” 

“You could’ve made some friends your age if you’d bothered respecting our traditions.” The boys would’ve forgiven Deimos for being taken out of the agoge and placed under Pallas for private tutoring, but when Deimos disdained almost every custom that made a Spartan a Spartan—well. The ephors weren’t the only people who considered Deimos little more than a wild animal. 

“The same people who revere warriors like Pallas but think they’re better than you,” Deimos said, sneering. “The same people who claim you haven’t done your duty for Sparta because you haven’t fathered children.” 

“Human society is a strange creature,” Brasidas said, taking a bite of his fish. “It’s cruel, illogical, violent, and merciless. We turn easily on each other for the smallest of things, sometimes out of nothing but fear. We revere some people as Gods and treat others as little more than property. We worship a Goddess of War but deny our women the full benefits of citizenship.”

“And yet?” Deimos said with a mocking smile. 

“And yet without it we are nothing,” Brasidas said, stroking his fingertips lightly up and down Deimos’ back.

“Easy for people like us to say,” Deimos said with a snort. “Sometimes, I look at the way people talk to Kassandra and wonder why she doesn’t snap and murder everything in sight.” 

“If things were different, if she were ‘Deimos’, perhaps.” Brasidas wasn’t sure about that. Kassandra could live the way she did because she was extraordinary, as god-touched as her brother. If she weren’t, she would’ve lived like most Greek women lived, shackled down by social function. That was the way of their world.

“I doubt it.”

“She does have better self-control than you do,” Brasidas conceded. 

“I don’t mean that. If our circumstances were reversed, she wouldn’t have had you. Had you found her, you would’ve given her away. Likely to a helot family.” 

“Likely,” Brasidas said. Spartan men had no business in the upbringing of little girls—they left it to Spartan women to manage. 

“The Spartan Way.” Deimos sneered. He finished eating and took Brasidas’ skewer from him, loping over to the entrance and tossing it onto the embers. He had a different gleam to his eye as he returned, one that Brasidas pretended not to recognise as Deimos knelt beside him. “Does it still hurt?” Deimos asked, massaging Brasidas’ bad leg with gentle fingers. 

“Your sister has a good life,” Brasidas said, ignoring the question. “Free as a bird, her own ship, always embarking on one adventure after another.” 

“Why? Do you envy her? We could get a ship, find a crew of our own.” 

“I don’t envy her.” Brasidas had always had ample opportunity to defect from Sparta. He’d lived a long and varied life, one where he’d been lucky to make any number of non-Spartan friends. He was as free as he wanted to be. 

“You think I should?” Deimos said, rubbing circles down Brasidas’ thigh. “Don’t you see how lonely she is?” 

“Lonely?” Brasidas said, startled. Kassandra never gave him that impression. She had her friends, her crew, Myrrine and her family. Even Deimos, grudging a brother as he was. “Surely not.” 

“Look closer. Why do you think Myrrine manipulates her so easily?” 

“Your mater is a great woman,” Brasidas said with gentle reproach. “We may not always agree, but she doesn’t do anything without good reason.” 

“That isn’t why Kassandra’s always so quick to do her bidding. She wants something from Myrrine that Spartan people aren’t capable of giving to their children. Kassandra would be happier if she could see that.”

“Did you tell her?” 

“I did. She told me I was an ass.” Deimos sniffed, shifting so that he knelt between Brasidas’ knees. “I don’t know why we have to bother with her. We can hunt the Cult ourselves.” 

Brasidas chuckled. “I like her.” 

“You would,” Deimos said, young enough to be sour about it. He leaned in, biting down just above Brasidas’ left nipple, hard enough that it stung. 

Brasidas hissed, his hands jumping to Deimos’ cheeks, stroking stubble. He gasped as Deimos bit down again over his ribs, ringing a reddened mark over Brasidas’ newest scar, panting hotly against his skin. Brasidas usually tried to chivvy Deimos along when he got into such a mood—they hardly ever had the luxury of time for each other. Deimos hummed with animal satisfaction as Brasidas lay back against the stone. Submitting went against his training, against the sense of self that Spartan society had built into his being. Brasidas let it go. He’d grown used to shedding preconceptions since meeting Deimos. 

Deimos kissed the next mark, a ridge of scar tissue high over Brasidas’ hip. He grazed his teeth against the scar, mouthing it wetly until Brasidas groaned hoarsely, his arousal thickening in his loincloth. He stroked Deimos’ hair, twisting bright beads between his fingers as Deimos found another scar with his teeth, then another. The ephors had warned Brasidas about this, coming close to censure. Had they not been afraid of Deimos, they’d have done it, even with everything Brasidas had done for Sparta. To love was not Spartan, even—especially—from the best of Sparta. Sparta was deeply cruel, deeply broken, and yet for much of his life, Brasidas had done all it asked of him. 

“What are you thinking about?” Deimos asked, his breath hot on Brasidas’ belly, grinning slyly as he rubbed his stubbled cheek against the bulge in Brasidas’ loincloth. 

“The ephors said that I should command you to do your duty.” 

“So you’ve mentioned.”

“They told me to find a way to cut ties with you that wouldn’t also result in your defection to Athens.” 

Deimos tensed, his playfulness leaving him. “And what did you say?”

“I said,” Brasidas said, stroking Deimos’ cheek, “that if they could think of a gentle way for me to do that, they should let me know.”

“Defection?” Deimos said, with an ugly laugh. “Is that all they fear? Brasidas, if you ever cut ties with me because of the ephors, I’ll gut them in the streets.” 

Brasidas shuddered. He’d expected Deimos to say as much, but as Deimos bit out the words, his gut twisted into knots. He could see that playing out. Deimos with his sword bloody, Ares incarnate, cutting a crimson path through the capital, his face contorted with fury. Brasidas had seen Deimos on the battlefield firsthand, transcendent and terrible. He had seen Deimos as a hard-eyed boy, suspicious of everyone. Deimos in the throes of lust, balanced on his lap. Brasidas loved Deimos in every aspect, at his best and his worst. If Deimos ever raised his blade against Sparta—

“Now you’re overthinking again,” Deimos said, laying a stinging bite against the scar on Brasidas’ inner thigh. 

“If you don’t want me to, then watch the things you say. Attacking the ephors would make you my enemy.”

Instead of another glare, or a protest, Deimos laughed darkly, nuzzling Brasidas’ knee, massaging the leg as he kissed. “I used to think of you as my enemy. Not just you. Sparta, the Cult, everyone. I used to believe that the whole world was out to hurt me.” 

“Understandably, given what you were put through.” The Cult had tried to hone Deimos into a weapon. They’d started young. 

“Things haven’t changed that much.” Deimos kissed up from Brasidas’ knee, a winding line up to his pelvis, breathing deep. “The world is still out to hurt me. I’ve seen it. Whether by getting me killed, or getting you hurt, it’s all the same. Spartans are born to be weapons, weapons that Sparta tries to use until they break.” 

“For glory and empire,” Brasidas murmured, words that he had never believed in. 

“For glory and empire,” Deimos repeated mockingly. He undid Brasidas’ loincloth, tossing it aside and kissing the tip of Brasidas’ straining cock. “I won’t allow anyone or anything to do that to you. No one will take you from me.” 

Death is inevitable, Brasidas wanted to say, and it is inevitably a lonely experience. He hummed instead, tugging gently but pointedly at Deimos’ hair. “Can I have you today?” Deimos asked, twisting free and nuzzling Brasidas’ palm. 

At Brasidas’ nod, Deimos leaned back, hooking over his belt and sorting through the pouches for the small jar of salve within it. Only then did he shift back over, slinging an arm against Brasidas’ belly and the rock, loudly sucking him down with a purr. Brasidas hissed, his hips jerking against Deimos’ immovable grip. Deimos’ breathing grew heavier as he tossed aside his loincloth and began to finger Brasidas open with slick fingers, panting from the effort of being patient. His throat clenched shut against Brasidas, swallowing exquisitely around his cock. “Gods,” Brasidas whispered, the words forced out through clenched teeth, the pain from the stretch mingling thickly with pleasure. 

Deimos pulled off with a wet pop, licking his lips. “To take pleasure in others is not Spartan,” Deimos said, his gaze heavy with lust and ill-humour. He ran his tongue slowly up Brasidas’ flesh as Brasidas cursed and bucked. “To love for the sake of love is not Spartan. To live for anything but the sake of Sparta is not Spartan. To that, I say: to Hades with Sparta.”

“Deimos,” Brasidas said, twisting his hand in Deimos’ hair into a fist. 

“My father, my mother, my grandfather, House Agiad, the ephors, the King… they can keep what they are and be damned.” Deimos climbed over Brasidas’ body, his handsome face contorted with lust and anger and pride, again transcendent, again terrifying. “Tell that to them the next time they talk to you about me, or I’ll tell them myself. With the point of my sword.” 

“You’re unmanageable,” Brasidas said, taking in a slow and strangled breath as Deimos kissed him and thrust his fingers in to the knuckles. 

Brasidas’ body didn’t open easily to intrusion, and it still felt sometimes strange to take this from a younger man, a man who was technically his subordinate. This was not the way of the world anywhere in Greece, even in Athens. A younger man could not—should not—laugh and catch his ear between sharp teeth with such a possessive curl to his lips. A younger man should not be permitted to work Brasidas open, to press him down on the rock, to kiss him with such bruising fervour. To push his knees open and hold him close and breach him, bit by bit, until they were both moaning as Deimos was fully hilted. And yet. It felt good to be full, to be held close, to have Deimos’ breaths break into stuttering groans against his throat. 

“Are you comfortable?” Deimos murmured, stroking Brasidas’ flagging arousal. 

“Give me time.” Brasidas wished they had more time—time for everything in the world. 

Time for more than Kassandra’s crusade against the Cult, for more than Sparta. As with every heretical thought he had ever had, however, he studied it, then buried it. Deimos hummed, patterning kisses over Brasidas’ throat, over his shoulders. Muscles shifted under Brasidas’ hands as he stroked up Deimos’ arms to his back, petting up and down his spine. They didn’t do this often, with Deimos being the one taking. It wasn’t because Brasidas was ashamed—he found nothing of what they were shameful, no matter what other people might think. It just wasn’t often convenient. Brasidas would be limping into tomorrow. Deimos never seemed bothered, but then again, Brasidas had seen Deimos walk off injuries that would have bedridden another man.

“You’re thinking loudly again,” Deimos said, kissing Brasidas’ bearded cheek. 

“Do something then,” Brasidas said. Deimos purred, holding his weight off Brasidas with one arm. His salve-slicked hand closed tight over Brasidas’ cock, stroking as Deimos began to move, slow and steady and deep. 

Deimos ignored tugs at his shoulders and on his hair, ignored moans and fingertips raking down his back. He scraped his teeth over Brasidas’ throat, against his cheek, the sounds of their lust loud and lewd in the cave. “You’re mine,” Deimos gasped each time he drove in. “Mine.”

#

“Someone’s in a better mood,” Deimos said as they boarded the Adrestia behind Kassandra. “Did you finally fuck someone interesting?”

Kassandra made a rude gesture at Deimos, though she smirked as she glanced over to Brasidas. “I’m not the only person who made good use of my shore leave,” she said, pointedly staring at Brasidas’ limp. “Are you even fighting fit right now?”

“Don’t be insulting,” Brasidas said, without any real heat. He retrieved his usual gear as the ship pulled away from the harbour and walked over to the helm. “Where are we headed?”

“Merchant ships confirmed that they'd sighted a suspicious fleet to the northeast, between here and Pythagoreion. From the description, I think we’re about to catch our shark,” Kassandra said. 

“A fleet?” Deimos said. 

“Why, scared?” Kassandra asked, smirking. 

“Hardly, if you know what you’re doing,” Deimos shot back. 

As the siblings glared at each other, Barnabas laughed, oblivious to the murderous tension. “Don’t worry about that. We’ve faced fleets before! Sunk our share. Run away from our share, too. We aren’t dead yet, eh?” 

“Yet,” Deimos muttered. 

The Adrestia caught the wind, surging into deep waters as its crew roared a shanty over the waves. Brasidas took care to breathe slowly, to ease down his excitement. It would be hours yet before they caught sight of the Shark. As an old hand at war and at naval warfare, Brasidas knew he had to take the time now to conserve his energy. He walked to the bow of the ship, where the eagle figurehead screamed its soundless challenge to the empty sky, where the reinforced ram sifted through white surf to either side of its edge. 

“Don’t worry,” Kassandra said. She’d followed him, trailing Deimos behind her. 

“I’m not worried. Your crew appears battle-hardened, and your ship is well-equipped.” The reinforcing works performed on the Adrestia were impressive—easily as good as the best ships in the Spartan navy.

“Do you ever get worried?” Kassandra asked, leaning her elbows against the edge of the ship, amused. 

“Now and then. Usually, it involves members of your family,” Brasidas said. He did not look at Deimos, but he heard Deimos laugh close behind him. 

“Our family,” Kassandra said, raising her gaze to Deimos. It was a truce, of sorts.

#

With the Shark and his fleet sunk to the bottom of the Aegean, the Adrestia limped to Pythagoreion for repairs. Kassandra sucked at her teeth as the shipwright at the docks inspected the damage to the deck and hull with a long face. “Well?” she said.

“I don’t want to know what you did to your ship,” said the shipwright, running his fingers over the splintered rail. “My people and I can repair it, but it’ll cost you.” 

Kassandra grumbled but started haggling. Brasidas took the opportunity to disembark. Pythagoreion was a tiny port city, barely more than a town. The rich scent of baking bread and herbs wafted by from just beyond the docks, the outdoor tables of the restaurant popular despite the odd hour. 

“Hungry?” Deimos asked. 

“No.” Hunger was a weakness that all Spartans were trained to disregard. 

Kassandra agreed on a price with the shipwright and walked over. “Don’t tell me you miss that slop that they like to serve people in Sparta.” 

“What’s wrong with black stew?” Brasidas said, though he smiled faintly. 

“I’m surprised that you even have the stomach to swing a spear, given that’s all you people eat.” Kassandra clapped Brasidas on the shoulder and ignored Deimos’ glower. “Let me treat you to some supper.” 

“Do you even still have money?” Deimos shot the shipwright’s back a significant glance. He was inspecting the charred mainmast with an air of fascinated horror. 

“I always have money. If I don’t, I make some. Come. You too, brother. Killing my enemies always makes me hungry,” Kassandra said. They sat at an empty table at the edge of the restaurant. Brasidas shook his head when Kassandra asked if there was anything on the menu that he was interested in. Deimos followed his lead, affecting disinterest until Kassandra’s pet eagle swooped down and landed on her outstretched wrist. This drew immediate comment from the other tables, who gawked and whispered among themselves as she transferred the eagle to her shoulder. 

“That’s one way to make an entrance,” Deimos said. 

“Jealous?” Kassandra asked, tickling under the eagle’s chin. 

Deimos sniffed disdainfully. “If I wanted a showy pet, I’d tame a lion.” 

“You know what they say about men and showy weapons,” Kassandra said, grinning unpleasantly. 

As Deimos stiffened, Brasidas said in a low tone, “What did you find in the Shark’s lockbox?” Kassandra had ordered it fished off the sinking wreck of the Mytilenian Shark’s ship, after which she had hunched over it at the bow of the ship, tinkering with the lock. 

“Baubles. Notes. An interesting letter.” Kassandra sat back. She swept the restaurant with a glance and said, “Have you heard of the Hydra?” 

“The myth? Multiple headed snake? You cut off the heads and burn the stumps?” Deimos said, brightening up. “It’s real?” 

“Unless a multi-headed snake has somehow learned how to write letters, the Hydra is a person.” Kassandra passed a scroll of animal hide to Brasidas, who unrolled it against the table, angling to keep it in view of only Deimos. It was a letter to the Shark, written in careful angular script. Brasidas scanned it to the end and waited for Deimos to finish reading before handing it back. 

“South of Aipeia,” Brasidas said. He started to say more and hesitated as serving staff brought over a platter with loaves of bread, roast fish, mashed beans, cheese, and olives, fragrant with oil. 

“Glutton,” Deimos said, reaching for bread and cheese. 

“You wouldn’t know what that means. You both live sad lives.” Kassandra fed her eagle a steaming sliver of fish. “I hear Nikolaos moved back in with mater? How’s that coming along?” 

“I’m waiting for one of them to snap and stab the other,” Brasidas said, selecting bread for himself. “They’re both difficult people with a lot of bad blood between them. The King tried to shuffle Nikolaos into another campaign, but we’ll see. The situation is new for everyone. Nikolaos and Myrrine may or may not be considered defectors. They may or may not still have their citizenship.” 

“He didn’t use to live with us anyway,” Kassandra said, popping an olive into her mouth. “Didn’t like exercising any of his privileges. Lived in the communal barracks with the other men, only visited our house when he had the time.” 

“He feels responsible,” Brasidas said. He hadn’t lived long in the communal barracks—he preferred the quiet at first, living on his own, and then he’d needed the space after all, when he found Deimos. Deimos, who should have lived in the agoge with the other boys his age, but who kept escaping. Sometimes Brasidas wondered if he should’ve been firmer with the boy. Regret was a waste of energy, though. 

“Good luck to him,” Kassandra said with a snort. “I’m not the forgiving kind.” 

“Neither,” Deimos said. He carved the fish into portions, pushing the largest to Brasidas, who shook his head and pushed it over to Kassandra. 

“Not hungry?” Kassandra asked. 

“You’re both young and should eat more,” Brasidas said. 

“It’s a Spartan thing,” Deimos said, pointedly pushing his portion to Brasidas. “They feed the younger soldiers with meat and subsist on leftovers. We’re not in Sparta,” he told Brasidas. “Eat, or none of us will eat.” 

Deimos glanced at Kassandra. Her hunk of bread paused en route to her mouth, and she started to set it down until Brasidas grimaced and began picking at the fish. It was fragrant and fresh, perfectly roasted, a far cry from Brasidas’ usual efforts. Food had always only been fuel to him, even after Brasidas had begun travelling the world and making friends with people from other cultures. Deimos was much the same. 

Kassandra, on the other hand—she lived loudly, fiercely, taking joy in everything from eating to sailing to war. Brasidas did not envy her, but he wished that Deimos did. For all their bickering, the siblings appeared to be nearing a state of wary friendship. Brasidas said little, eating slowly and listening to Kassandra ribbing Deimos over the brightness of his armour.

“Wine!” Kassandra called, gesturing at serving staff.

He came over with an ingratiating smile. “My apologies. We haven’t been able to serve wine for over a month. There’s been a lot of pirate activity around the islands, and merchants have been staying away.”

“Pirates?” Kassandra frowned. “Who?” 

“I wouldn’t know, misthios. I’m sorry.” 

Kassandra grunted, waving him away. “We have wine aboard the ship,” Brasidas said. He nodded at Deimos. “Fetch it.” 

“For someone who’s been told to cut ties with me, you do still like ordering me about,” Deimos said, though he got up with a mocking smile and a flourish and stalked back toward the ship. 

“Cut ties?” Kassandra said, once Deimos was at the gangplank.

“The ephors grew concerned. He _is_ the only male heir to House Agiad,” Brasidas said with a wry curl to his mouth. 

Kassandra sniffed. “You can’t do that.” 

“Can’t I?”

“He’ll go berserk.” Kassandra waved the small knife she was using on the fish in the air. “He’ll murder the people who told you to do it.”

“You know him well.” Brasidas popped another olive in his mouth, spitting out the pit. “Would that Sparta was the same. Besides, even if he was willing to obey the dictate, I don’t know if I would want that life for him.”

“Oh?” Kassandra said, surprised. “I thought you’d be all for it. Were Deimos as committed to Sparta as you were, he’d make General quickly, given the Spartan obsession with bloodlines. Maybe even King. He might end this pointless, endless war with Athens.” 

“The both of you are the most remarkable people I’ve ever met, but neither of you would make great Kings.” Kassandra was too softhearted, Deimos too merciless. 

“True.” Kassandra passed her eagle another sliver of fish. “Not to mention Sparta wouldn’t accept a woman for a King.”

“Sparta was willing to accept you as their representative in the Olympics,” Brasidas pointed out. “I’m still not sure how that happened.”

“Sharks happened,” Kassandra said with a dismissive wave. “And my bloodline, I suppose. I’ve never understood people who thought that kind of thing important. Why should it matter that my grandfather was famous? I’d rather be judged on the things I’ve done.” 

“Your brother’s much the same.” 

“Once, he told me he wished he’d never found out who he was.” 

“He thought things would change.” 

“Haven’t they?”

“He’s as stubborn as you are.” Brasidas’ leg was aching again, but he ignored it. “Someday, I hope you’d take him with you. Not only when I’m here. Even when I’m not.”

Kassandra looked keenly at him. “Have you had this conversation with him?” 

“Yes.” 

“And?”

“He laughed.” 

“Thought so. Why do you want to push him on me?” Kassandra made a face. “He’s a barely functional human being at the best of times.” 

“You love him. I can see it.” 

“Whenever I don’t feel like wringing his neck, maybe. He _is_ my brother. I do, however, feel like strangling him most of the time.” 

“It’d be good for him to see the world for himself.” 

Kassandra leaned in, her eagle rebalancing on her shoulder with a flick of its wings. Whatever she saw on Brasidas face made her sit back and grab another chunk of bread. “I used to envy you,” she said. 

Brasidas blinked. “Why?” 

“It isn’t because Alexios loves you. I’m glad that happened—I shudder to think what would’ve happened to him if he stayed in the hands of the Cult. The damage they’d already done—” Kassandra ripped off a hunk of bread with a savage jerk of her head. She chewed and swallowed slowly. “I’d like to be loved the way you are. Someday. The life I have—I’m glad to have it. I wouldn’t change it for the world. But it makes a wanderer out of me. In the lives of most of the people I meet, I’m a visitor at best. It can get lonely.”

#

Judging from the letter, the Hydra’s last known stop was Aipeia City. With nothing to do on the island of Samos but wait for the Adrestia to be repaired, Brasidas took to long walks among the trees. The island had a minimal Athenian presence that appeared embroiled in conflict with the pirates who called this part of the Aegean Sea home.

“We could charter a ship west,” Deimos said along yet another walk to the Temple of Hera. “Drop by Sparta. Kassandra can catch up to us in Aipeia.” 

“Do you want to leave?” Deimos hadn’t looked bored.

“No. You’ve been in an odd mood, though. Impatient?” 

“Not at all.” An odd mood? Brasidas hadn’t noticed. He’d had time to stretch his legs, to spend his days watching the stars. Here in Samos, he was no-one: not even the Athenians who’d noticed them thought anything odd of their appearance—pirates tended to be distinctive in appearance.

“You’ve hardly spoken a word all day. Not even to give voice to one of your lectures.” 

Brasidas regarded Deimos with amusement. “Haven’t you heard all of those by now?”

“Who knows? You might have new material. Maybe something about what happens when you ignore the odds and take on three heavily armed pirate ships with one ship and an eagle.” 

“We won.”

“Barely, and that’s only because my sister opted to ram the Shark’s flagship and board it.”

The escort ships had broken off and fled once they saw Kassandra run through their leader with her sword. “It was the best tactical move to make in the circumstances. What would you have done instead?” 

“The Shark would’ve had to make port sooner or later. I’d have preferred to kill him on land.” 

“You could have said something to Kassandra.” 

“I knew her plan would work.” Deimos swept their surroundings with a glance; then he leaned in to steal a swift kiss. “I also knew this was likely to happen. A damaged ship, necessary repairs, and us on a small island with little to do for a week or so.” 

“Yet you’ve suggested leaving.” 

“If _you_ want to.” 

Brasidas looked away, folding his hands behind his back, under his borrowed shield. The Spartan shield again sat below decks aboard the Adrestia. In his youth, he’d have felt unbalanced without its familiar heft against his back. Now, he felt weightless. “I’ve been thinking things over since Amphipolis,” Brasidas said. 

“What things?” 

“Some days I wake up thinking I’ve cheated the Fates.” 

“Survivor’s guilt? From a Spartan?” Deimos smiled, but the humour didn’t touch his eyes. 

“No. Death is a part of life, and is nothing to be afraid of.”

“You could get yourself assigned to spearhead another campaign. Amphipolis was a success. Kleon was killed.” 

“I could.”

“Or what, you want to retire after all?” Deimos pretended to think about it. “In Sparta? You’d never be able to retire. They’d probably start sending you people to train. What about a small island somewhere? Like this one?” 

“What would you do if I retired?” 

Deimos frowned at him. “Is this another attempt to ‘cut ties’, or whatever the ephors asked you to do?”

“No. It’s a genuine question.”

Brasidas expected a quip, but Deimos fell silent, rubbing his jaw as he thought it through. “I haven’t thought about it.” 

“You would be free.” No more having to tag along with Brasidas on business for Sparta. No more battlefields, no more tasks. 

Deimos threw back his head with a loud laugh. “Is that what you think, eh? Brasidas, I’ve told you. I’ve been the master of my own life for a long time—because you gave me the means. I could have run away anytime I liked since I learned how to ride, to hunt, to fish, to sail. From you.”

“I didn’t teach you how to fight.”

“What did knowing that—and only that—make me but a weapon?” Deimos patted the scabbard at his hip. “Weapons are made to be possessed and used. I haven’t been one for a long time. If I’m here by your side, it’s because I choose to be here.”

Brasidas looked away. The path fed away into the trees, then to the sea, visible through uneven bark as a glittering expanse. He did not often have the time to admire it. To slow down, to sit on a rock on a cliff and watch the sun drop into the horizon’s embrace. “The ephors told me to investigate the Cult, but they did not ask me to assist Kassandra.”

“I thought so. They don’t know what to make of her.” Deimos rubbed his palm down Brasidas’ back, dipping his fingers against the buckles of his armour. “Why did you lie?”

“I wanted you to have another life. However temporarily.” 

Deimos huffed, wolflike and amused. “That is not very Spartan.” 

“I haven’t been ‘very Spartan’ for a long time.” Brasidas tickled his fingers up through Deimos’ hair, to graze his fingertips against stubble-roughened cheeks. “A Spartan is a weapon, possessed and used by the state. I never thought I’d be anything more.” Saying that aloud loosened a weight around him that he hadn’t noticed until now. Brasidas breathed easier, under the sun, within sight of the sea. 

Deimos grasped Brasidas’ hand, kissing his palm. “Now that we understand each other, what next?” 

Brasidas pulled away his hand, turning around. “We charter a ship. Kassandra can meet us at Aipeia.”

“Good. I was getting bored of watching her drink.” Deimos brushed his lips over the base of Brasidas’ hand, over the rim of his bracer.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: @manic_intent  
> writing, prompt policy: manic-intent.tumblr.com  
> —  
> Refs:  
> http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Instituta_Laconica*.html  
> https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/sparta


End file.
